At SB Nation, this week is Rivalry Week. Here at Acme Packing Company, we will examine the Green Bay Packers‘The greatest historical rivalries and those against their current divisional rivals. Today we start with a look at the team’s “newest” rival, the Minnesota Vikings.
In almost every broadcast of something akin to a true rivalry game, the commentator of color will make a comment along the lines of “these teams just don’t want each other.” And even if the Minnesota Vikings are relatively young compared to the Green Bay Packers’ other divisional rivals, the Packers surely don’t like them as much as the Bears or Lions, if not more.
Since joining the NFL in 1960, the Vikings have given the Packers all sorts of trouble. Whether Bud Grant harassed Vince Lombardi’s teams in the 1960s, the Metrodome house of horrors that was the 1990s, or current Vikings fans’ obsession with playing Anthony’s hit Barr over Aaron Rodgers in 2017, there has been a lot of evil everywhere. when these two teams come together.
General history of the series
Regular season: Packers lead 61-53-2
Postseason: Tied 1-1
Longest streak: Vikings W7, 1975-78
1960: Vikings make Packers work to win early
The Vikings played the Packers pretty hard early in their shared history. Although the Packers took the decade (winning 11 of 18 games), the Vikings certainly didn’t make it easy for them. Two of the Packers ‘wins were by five points or less, and in the Vikings’ seven wins, the Packers only broke 20 points once Bud Grant and his strong defenses put the brakes on Lombardi and Company. In fact, the Vikings gave the Packers one of two losses during their march to Super Bowl I, a 20-17 fight in which the Vikings recovered to accumulate 10 points in the fourth quarter on a 31 degree day. at Lambeau Field.
1970s: Vikings’ high mark corresponds to the Packers “Bloody Years”
You may not have heard it, but the 1970s wasn’t exactly kind to the Packers. Vince Lombardi was gone, like most of the big names of his time. Bart Starr stayed for a couple of seasons, but was a shell of himself. He came back as head coach, but it didn’t go much better. Overall, the ’70s were a bad time to be Packers fans.
The Vikings, meanwhile, made all four of their Super Bowl appearances in the 1970s. They would lose all four, but they seem to have taken out their angst with the Packers. In 20 games, the Packers were victorious only four times and only managed to break 20 points twice.
Playing the Vikings was an exercise in futility for the entire team, and there was no better representation of that futility than Terdell Middleton’s performance of 39 carries, 110 yards, a touchdown for the Packers against the Vikings in 1978. Despite the heroic With Middleton working through the Vikings’ defense, the best the Packers could do was a 10-10 draw.
1980s: Packers dominate the end of the Bud Grant era
After a recession in the 1970s, the Packers roared in the 1980s, at least when it comes to their rivalry with the Vikings. The Packers were 14-5 against their purple counterparts in the 1980s, including seasonal sweeps in 1980, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988. The decade also featured some of the most uneven games in Packers / Vikings history. . The Vikings gave the Packers losses of 42-7 and 32-6, while the Packers responded with victories of 45-17, 38-14 and 34-14. The Packers’ 45-17 win is especially notable as they tied for 17 at one point in the third quarter before exploding into a loss.
1990s: The decade belongs to the Packers, but the Vikings take the rivalry.
The Vikings won 12 of their 20 games with the Packers in the 1990s for two simple reasons: Metrodome and Randy Moss.
For starters, even in the mid-1990s, the Packers simply couldn’t win in Minnesota. Mike Holmgren didn’t get his first Metrodome victory until 1997, and the Packers only won there twice in the entire decade.
The arrival of Randy Moss in 1998 did not make things easier. Moss was announced with a five-catch, 190-yard, two-touchdown performance in his first appearance in the rivalry, the first of many times to torture the Packers.
2000s: great moments and bad blood
The first decade of the new millennium featured some of the most important moments in the Packers / Vikings rivalry. And if it wasn’t for one of the most notable retreats in football history, the first match between these two teams after Y2k might have been the most exciting. In a sloppy, wet overtime contest during the 2000 season, Antonio Freeman’s catch of “did what” gave the Packers an iconic 26-20 victory over the Vikings, and somewhere Chris Dishman still wonders what It happened exactly on that play.
The Packers took half of the decade in the regular season, including a pair of 34-31 wins in the last second during the regular season in 2004. However, the Vikings also gave the Packers a significant loss. In the 2003 playoff wild card round, the Vikings hit the Packers at Lambeau Field. Randy Moss scored two touchdowns in the 31-17 spanking that was not as close as it appears on paper, scoring his second score with what Joe Buck would describe as “an unpleasant act”: false moon in the crowd at Lambeau Field.
Brett Favre defined the latter part of the decade on both sides of the rivalry. In 2007, making what would be his last visit to the Metrodome as a member of the Packers, Favre broke Dan Marino’s passing touchdown record with a 16-yard strike to Greg Jennings.
After Favre’s first retirement, he retired and spent the 2008 season with the Jets. While there, Aaron Rodgers earned his first start for the Packers, a 24-19 victory over the Vikings to open the 2008 season. The Vikings won the second matchup against the Packers in 2008, achieving a narrow 28-27 win thanks to a free kick by Mason Crosby on a 52-yard field goal when time expired.
Then there was 2009.
Finally landing in his preferred post-Packer environment, Brett Favre won both games against his former team, including a 38-26 effort at Lambeau Field.
2010s: The Packers take revenge on Favre in purple, the loss of the playoffs in a strange decade
If the 2000s represented the climax of this rivalry, the 2010s was its bizarre encore.
Namely: The decade includes two draws, the most uneven game in rivalry history (a 45-7 Packers victory in 2011), a Vikings victory (16-0 in 2017), Joe Webb starting a game of playoffs and more.
The Packers opened the decade almost as well as they could have hoped, avenging their losses to Favre with two wins, including a 31-3 breakup that ended Brad Childress’s time as head coach of the Vikings. The Packers primarily dominated the rivalry until 2014, with just a last-second loss in 2012 and a draw in 2013 (without Aaron Rodgers) that marred his record.
The Packers’ early dominance in this decade also includes the literal and figurative demolition of the Metrodome. On their last visit before the dome was demolished by the bird-killing sandpit that is the US Bank Stadium, the Packers smoked the Vikings 44-31, scoring on every run, except one that started with four seconds remaining in the first half. and another one that finished the game.
However, the Vikings’ fortunes have changed somewhat since the last week of the 2015 regular season. They scored a victory in the de facto NFC North title game in week 17 of that year, beating the Packers 20-13. at Lambeau Field. Counting that game and the first matchup of the 2015 season, the Packers are only 4-5-1 against the Vikings in the last half of the decade.
That includes three losses at the new Vikings stadium, one of which featured the infamous Barr / Rodgers hit. Barr landed at Rodgers, in part, precipitating the change in the “body weight” rule, which played a key role in the Packers’ draw with the Vikings in 2018. Clay Matthews landed at Kirk Cousins and was scored, overriding what should have been a sealed interception game by Jaire Alexander.
The Packers bounced back in 2019, winning both games against the Vikings, including an NFC North win in Week 16.
Looking towards 2020
Both the Packers and Vikings made significant changes that alter the future this offseason. The Packers selected the possible successor to Aaron Rodgers in the first round this spring, selecting Jordan Love, who will hopefully lead the Packers to an even wider lead in the series standings. The Vikings, meanwhile, gave up a good chunk of their defense, one that has consistently pestered the Packers under head coach Mike Zimmer.
Even if the biggest names involved turn out to be different, one thing’s for sure: there’s no reason to think that these teams will start liking each other any time soon.
